Meeting the Demand for Scientology Materials

Bridge Publications is the world’s largest all-digital, print-on-demand publishing house.

New facilities can print 500,000 books and 925,000 compact discs a week

Since release of the Dianetics and Scientology Basic Books and Lectures in 2007, Scientologists have flooded into their churches in greater numbers than ever. Demand for the materials has grown exponentially and, as parishioners have progressed through those books and lectures, the numbers of new people coming in to find out about Scientology have likewise grown. Indeed, the Scientology religion is now enjoying its greatest expansion era in history, with public demand for L. Ron Hubbard books and lectures escalating across more than 200 nations, 150 cultures and in some 50 languages.

Meeting that demand required facilities to provide books and lectures in any language, any quantity, with adequate speed and economy—no matter if 500 copies of a title in Swahili for Uganda or 1 million in English. No conventional printing house would serve—not with a 2,500-lecture library times 50 languages. Time frames could never be met and printing costs for a relatively small number of books for new pioneer areas would prove entirely prohibitive.

A new publishing strategy was needed and, under the direction of Mr. Miscavige, that strategy was developed and put in place in early 2007—even prior to release of The Basics.

Mr. Miscavige directed that all books and lecture CDs be produced inhouse, the entire line from inception to distribution: printing, foiling, embossing, laminating, CD replication, packaging and shipping. Housed in massive new headquarters, the Church’s publishing arms are now the world’s largest all-digital, print-on-demand facilities. Their precision operation is visited regularly by industry leaders as a model of innovation and efficiency.

Bridge Publications manufactures all Dianetics and Scientology books, lectures and course packs for the Americas, Asia and the rest of the world, except Europe and the United Kingdom which are under the purview of New Era Publications in Copenhagen, Denmark. In combination, Bridge and New Era can print 500,000 books and 925,000 compact discs a week. Annually, that amounts to 26 million books and 48 million CDs.

Add in paperbacks and course packs, and the printed pages placed end to end would extend to the moon and back.

With digital printing and print-on-demand, production has soared and keeps pace with the demand. Eighty million L. Ron Hubbard books and lectures have been distributed in the past five years alone, more than in the previous 50 years—and 60 million in just the past two years.

Moreover, with all Mr. Hubbard’s religious works now available to anyone the world over, what has ensued is no less than a renaissance for the Scientology religion.